Flexible and Consistent Reporting for Energy Efficiency Programs: Introducing a New Tool for Reporting Spending and Savings for Programs Funded by Utility Customers

Energy efficiency programs funded by utility customers spent $7 billion in 2013 (CEE 2014), with spending projected to rise over the next decade (Barbose et al. 2013). Administrators of those programs document much of this spending and provide estimated energy savings in annual reports. This reporting is often incomplete and inconsistent across states.

This brief outlines the case for improved reporting by:   

1. Reviewing reporting practices and characterizing key benefits of more consistent reporting practices, including policy questions that improved practices can address; and
2. Proposing core and supplemental (optional) data fields and standardized formats for annual reporting of results at the program level that states and program administrators can adopt.

This brief describes the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Energy Efficiency Reporting Tool, a spreadsheet-based tool that helps electric and natural gas utilities and other efficiency program administrators report annual program savings, expenditures, and related information to state regulators and other utility oversight boards and stakeholders. The tool is intended to help those states and program administrators that are ramping up energy efficiency activities as well as states that want to improve and standardize program-level reporting with more transparent performance metrics. The tool is available at http://emp.lbl.gov/what-it-costs-save-energy.

Primary audiences for this brief include state public utility commissions (PUCs) and boards for public and consumer-owned utilities that oversee energy efficiency programs funded by utility customers, energy efficiency program administrators, consumer groups and other stakeholders interested in energy efficiency. Some potential benefits of the tool include a consistent and clear reporting structure to present important data in a standard format, reduced time for PUCs and boards to assess reporting compliance, and the ability to benchmark and evaluate demand-side resource program strategies and efficacy of administration and implementation.